Michael Gross, (born June 17, 1964, Frankfurt am Main, W.Ger.), German swimmer who won six Olympic medals, including three golds, in the 1980s.

At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Gross became the first West German to win a swimming gold medal, setting a world record in the 200-metre freestyle (1 min 47.44 sec) and in the 100-metre butterfly (53.08 sec). He also anchored the West German team in the 4 × 200-metre freestyle relay; despite Gross’s record-setting (1 min 46.89 sec) 200-metre split, the West Germans were edged out by the U.S. team. Gross’s other silver came in the 200-metre butterfly, an event he had dominated since 1982. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, Gross’s only gold medal was in the 200-metre butterfly, in Olympic record time (1 min 56.94 sec). He added a bronze medal in the 4 × 200-metre freestyle relay.

At 6 feet 7 inches (1.98 m), Gross was known as “The Albatross” because of his wide arm span. He often had a custom-designed bed flown to the site of major competitions.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.